Rohan Smith says that while it’s difficult to ignore ladder position this time of the season, the Bulldogs will be focused on the group playing ‘the right way’ against the Tigers on Saturday night.

The Bulldogs currently sit in sixth place on the AFL ladder, tied on points with the second-place Cats and a loss this weekend could see them fall as far as eighth. 

A win, on the other hand, could see the Dogs rise as high as first.

“Look, you can see the ladder and the way that it is you drop to sixth or seventh, you win you go to one or two," he told westernbulldogs.com.au on Thursday.

“Every game is important but we don’t necessarily go out there and say we have to win this game, we say we’ve got to play well and if we play the way we want to play then a win will look after itself.”

The Dogs face a Richmond team sitting in twelfth place and coming off a loss to Port Adelaide last weekend, but Smith says the it would be unwise to take Damien Hardwick’s Tigers lightly.

“We were just discussing this morning that once the Tiges get a little bit of a run on, they can gain some momentum, so, we don’t want to take them lightly at all," he said.

“We want to keep continuing on the way that we want to play and we want to improve still on last week. 

“It was a great effort last week to go to Sydney and get the win but there’s still improvements in our game that [we’re working on] going towards the business end of the season.”