Dartford manager Tony Burman felt his side paid the price for failing to take their chances against Chelmsford.

The Darts’ season came to an end on Sunday when they lost their National League South play-off semi-final second leg at home to Chelmsford.

It means the Darts missed out on a play-off final showdown with neighbours Ebbsfleet but Burman knew they had to score first against Chelmsford.

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“The result is disappointing for us,” said Burman. “The first goal was always going to the turning point and in all fairness we had the chances in the first half.

“You’ve got to put the chances in and that’s what’s disappointing for me, we haven’t taken the lead against Chelmsford.

“We know what they do, they put you under pressure by getting the ball forward and long throws. I thought we handled that really well in both games. We needed to get that goal and it wasn’t to be.

“We had some half-chances at 0-0 but in the second half they put us under a lot of pressure. You can see how the goals have come.”

Burman refused to blame defender Tom Bonner for Chelmsford’s opener, after Chris Dickson beat the Darts centre-back with ease near the corner flag, instead suggesting there were other players at fault.

“There was throw down the line and two of our players couldn’t control the ball,” said Burman.

“The next part was in the corner, I don’t think Tom dived in, Dickson took an opportunity to turn and he caught Tom on the hop.

“Then you can turn around and say where was the defender who was supposed to be marking in the box.

“There were loads of things but at the end of the day they put the ball in the net but we haven’t.”

Burman could not fault the work-rate of his players but knew they were always going to be up against it having conceded the first goal of a keenly-contested semi-final.

Both games saw so few chances created that Dartford needed to be ruthless whenever the opportunity arose.

“The effort was there,” added the Dartford boss. “The way we tried to play was there and what was lacking was we didn’t put the ball in the net first.

“There were opportunities in the first half to do that. It was a concern of mine because Chelmsford wear you down. That’s fine, we’ve got to cope with that.

“In the second half they wore us down and once they got the goal they started to play some good football.”