Tony Burman could only admire James White’s winning goal after the former Dartford midfielder led Concord to victory.

White played under Burman for three seasons, between 2008 and 2011, helping Darts to the Ryman League Premier Division title.

He marked his return to Princes Park by scoring a 30-yard stunner - the pick of three excellent goals - as Rangers won 2-1 in National League South on Saturday.

Darts boss Burman had nothing but praise for a player he released.

He said: “James was excellent when I had him here. He’s a good player and he showed it today.

“From my point of view, if we give anyone as much room as we gave him, then he will shine.

“I’ve got the utmost respect for him. He’s helped me get this club where they are and any player who’s done that for me will get praise.

“I had to move on when I let him go. I think he had a work problem as well but having said that I’ve got no regrets on anything at all.

“He’s enjoying his football, he’s playing well in a team he likes for playing for.

“I think he might have hit one like that when he was here. It’s a great strike, disappointing for us, but you’ve got to respect when people have hit the ball like that.”

Burman felt Dartford should have had a late penalty when George Sykes was taken out by keeper Ben McNamara, branding referee Ashvin Degnarin’s decision strange.

But he refused to blame that for the result and was instead gracious in defeat, although he felt Darts didn’t help themselves as they dropped a place to sixth.

He said: “We get ourselves into a good position in the top five and we don’t seem to sustain it and so that side of it is disappointing.

“I felt that Concord came and played the ball around better than us but we gave them too much space and it didn’t help us.

“If you look at the saves that Derin Ibrahim’s had to pull off, again mainly from outside the box, I have to say that Concord probably just edged the game.

“I don’t want to say that was because we weren’t at the races but we didn’t do as well as we should.

“If I had room in midfield as some of their players had, then I’d be passing it about and knocking it around like some of them did.

“We closed people down but we didn’t close down as a unit. We huffed and puffed but it wasn’t quite good enough in the second half.”