REIGNING premiers Richmond has vowed to block out the emotional rollercoaster that comes with walking the finals tightrope.

The Tigers have won just one of their past seven games and sit one win outside the top eight ahead of their clash against last-placed North Melbourne on Saturday afternoon.

Coach Damien Hardwick has rung five changes for the MCG clash, including handing a debut to 19-year-old Maurice Rioli jnr, the son of Maurice.

Richmond was wasteful in front of goal in its last-start four-point loss to Fremantle, notching six goals and 15 behinds.

Coach Damien Hardwick conceded games are wearing thin with just fixtures against GWS and Hawthorn, both sides outside the eight, to come after this weekend.

"We've lost some games by a couple of kicks, if you had have won those games all of a sudden the emotional state of your footy club will change," he said.

"We want to remain emotionally stable. As soon as we start to ride the emotional rollercoaster we're not going to be at our best.

"We're struggling to play our brand of footy consistently at the moment, but we think we're going to give ourselves the very best chance over the next three weeks to play a Richmond style of game."

Hardwick said various parts of the Tigers' game had let them down at different times.

"We're doing a hell of a lot of training on it, but the problem is sometimes you do a lot of training and you don't quite get the result."

Jack Ross, Jason Castagna, Jake Aarts, Josh Caddy, Mabior Chol and Ryan Garthwaite have made way after the Dockers loss, with Rioli Jnr, Nick Vlastuin, Kamdyn McIntosh, Callum Coleman-Jones and Hugo Ralphsmith included.

The Kangaroos have pushed more fancied teams in recent weeks and welcome back key players Tarryn Thomas (concussion) and Cam Zurhaar (shoulder).

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The club is four premiership points behind Hawthorn and remains a shot of avoiding the wooden spoon.