Leandro Trossard was relieved to open his Brighton account after VAR threatened to ruin his debut.
The Belgian winger, an £18million summer signing from Genk, had a fine first-half volley against West Ham ruled out due to an offside in the build-up.
It was the correct decision but the delay while it was made was bordering on the ridiculous and seemed to affect Brighton.
Both teams had lined up ready for the restart by the time on-field referee Anthony Taylor got word in his ear that VAR Darren Bond had spotted the infringement by Dan Burn.
The Seagulls, who dominated the match, then found themselves behind on the hour when Javier Hernandez converted West Ham’s first shot on target.
But Trossard rescued a point for his new side when he drove in from the edge of the box.
“It was a nice strike, but it’s bad luck that they didn’t allow it,” said the 24-year-old.
“At that moment it was still 0-0 and we had to keep on going and react. We then responded well after going a goal down, too.
“I then managed to get my first goal in the Premier League for Brighton which helped us level the scores.
“It’s a shame that we couldn’t score the winning goal, but we’ve shown that we want to play and create chances.”
West Ham, thrashed 5-0 by Manchester City on the opening day of the season, were missing two key attackers, Sebastien Haller and Felipe Anderson, through injury.
Hernandez was isolated in the first half but the half-time introduction of Michail Antonio gave the Hammers more of a threat.
Midfielder Robert Snodgrass said: “We probably did need more going forward and that’s why the manager went with two up top in the second half.
“We caused them more problems after that. The manager wasn’t happy with our forward play, he changed things and that’s what top managers do.
“We had to have a reaction from last week. On another day we could have won the game – I had a chance towards the end, Antonio too, but it’s football.
“You prepare throughout the week to try and get three points. It wasn’t, but we got a point on the board which is good for us.”
