DESPITE the pressure surrounding his club, Richmond skipper Chris Newman says this week's game is no bigger than any other.

The Tigers are yet to notch a win – despite leading Geelong at Skilled Stadium early in the last term in round two – and this Sunday come up against Melbourne, which is also sporting a 0-3 record.

But with the Tigers widely tipped pre-season to finish in the eight, and coach Terry Wallace freely admitting that finals are needed for him to have a shot at keeping his job, losing and going 0-4 would be a disaster.

The three teams that have beaten the Tigers – Carlton, Geelong and the Western Bulldogs – are all predicted to make the finals, but the manner of the losses in rounds one and three are causing concern.

Still, Newman denied the match had any more significance than the available four points.

"This week is as big a game as any other game," he said.

"Melbourne will be pumped up and it's going to be a tough game.

"There's always going to be pressure if we lose another game of football – that's just the way that it goes, but this week, we're going to be trying our best, obviously.

"We think that our best is good enough to beat Melbourne."

But the media feeding frenzy that has developed around Punt Rd this week couldn't be totally ignored, Newman said.

"As you keep losing the pressure grows, there's no doubt about that.

"There's always going to be pressure and there's always going to be that expectation from our supporters who have been starved of success for so long.

"But if you go out there and freeze up because you've let all the external pressures get to you, then we're not going to play as freely as we'd like to, and that's going to really impact the result."

Despite the Tigers being 0-3, Newman said the goals were still the same.

"We think we've got the players here to play finals football and if we didn't think that we'd lose every game.

"I haven't played finals football yet – I want to play finals football. I want to be in a successful team. I want to be captain of a successful club at Richmond.

"Everyone wants success around here. We've got a lot of pride.

"We're not going out there intentionally trying to lose.

"We're disappointed in our effort and we're going to play with a lot of passion this week.

"As long as I'm captain, that's something that's going to be in the forefront of the minds of all the players."