For 87 minutes the Groupama Stadium held its breath and feared the worst. Lyon, so early on the front foot of the Ligue 1 season, looked destined to surrender their unbeaten start to a Le Havre side that had come to Décines with a plan and the discipline to see it through. Then Loïs Openda arrived, as strikers do, in the one square yard where it mattered. His right-footed finish from the left side of the six-yard box salvaged a 1-1 draw and spared the home crowd a long walk into the night.

It was not the performance Lyon had promised after their opening exchanges of the campaign, and it was not the result they wanted. But it was, at the death, the point their persistence just about deserved. A draw that keeps them in the top two also carries the sour aftertaste of two dropped, and both truths sat side by side as the final whistle sounded.

Le Havre, for their part, will drive home cursing the clock. They had done the hard part. They had led. They had defended their advantage with the kind of collective stubbornness that wins matches at the bottom end of the division. And they had it snatched away with three minutes on the clock, a single point instead of three, a fine effort reduced to a footnote.

Samatta strikes

The decisive first blow came on 74 minutes, and it came from a source the visitors had clearly identified. Fodé Doucouré swung in a cross from the flank, and Mbwana Samatta rose in the centre of the box to meet it, the header steered low and precise into the bottom left corner. It was a goal of old-fashioned virtues: a good delivery, a striker's timing, a finish that gave the goalkeeper no chance.

For Le Havre it was the reward for a game plan executed with real conviction. They had absorbed pressure, stayed compact, and waited for the moment to break clear. Doucouré's cross was the payoff, Samatta the executioner, and suddenly a team that had lost their previous outing were dreaming of a first win of the season on the road.

The lead lasted long enough to feel real. The visiting bench sensed it, the travelling support believed it, and Lyon's frustration began to curdle into something like anxiety. A 74th-minute deficit at home, against a side scrapping for their lives, is precisely the kind of situation that separates the composed from the flustered.

Openda to the rescue

Lyon's answer took its time but arrived with force. In the 87th minute they won a corner, and from it Zachary Athekame produced the moment that changed the evening, nodding a headed pass across the face of goal into the danger zone. Openda did the rest, pouncing from the left side of the six-yard box and lashing his right-footed shot into the bottom left corner.

The relief around the stadium was seismic. Openda's celebration carried all the release of a man who had spent an hour hunting exactly that opportunity. It was a poacher's goal in the truest sense — first to react, ruthless in the finish — and it underlined why Lyon will look to him to shoulder their goals this season.

Athekame deserves his share of the credit, too. His headed delivery was the product of a set-piece routine that finally clicked when the hosts needed it most. Corners had promised much and delivered little all evening; this one, at the last, was worth a point.

What the point means

For Lyon, the draw keeps them handsomely placed. They sit second on four points from their opening two fixtures, with one win and now one draw, three goals scored and only one conceded before Samatta's intervention added to that tally. It is a start that speaks of a side settling quickly, even if this performance suggested the finished article is some way off.

There is a lesson buried in the frustration. A team with genuine designs on the top of Ligue 1 cannot allow lower-half opponents to dictate the terms of a home fixture for as long as Le Havre did here. The late rescue papers over a sluggish middle section, and Lyon's coaching staff will know it. Two points from two games is a return that flatters neither their ambition nor their opening-day promise.

Still, resilience counts for something. Finding a goal in the 87th minute, against a defence that had barely blinked, is a quality that wins titles as often as fluency does. Lyon banked a point they might easily have lost, and momentum is rarely broken by a draw earned this way.

Le Havre's small gains

Le Havre leave Lyon 16th, on a single point from their first two matches, with one draw and one defeat, one goal for and now two against. On the raw arithmetic it is a modest haul. On the evidence of this display, it is a foundation. A team that can go to the Groupama Stadium, take the lead and hold it into the closing stages has more about it than its league position suggests.

The manner of the concession will sting for days. To defend so well for so long, only to be undone by a corner in the 87th minute, is the cruellest way to shed two points. Samatta and Doucouré combined for a goal worthy of winning any match; that it won nothing is the game's harsh verdict rather than a reflection of their quality.

The task now is to convert this into results. Le Havre have shown they can compete; the next step is learning to close matches out, to turn promising positions into three points rather than one. Do that, and a season that currently reads as one point from two will begin to look very different. For now, they head off with a share of the spoils and the nagging sense that more was there for the taking.