North Melbourne coach Brad Scott says he won't attempt to copycat the small forward system that catapulted Richmond to a drought-breaking AFL premiership last season.
Before the Kangaroos' final pre-season game against the Tigers at Ikon Park on Wednesday night, Scott said he would resist the temptation to mimic the premiers' mosquito-fleet forward line.
"Other clubs will follow suit because history says everyone looks at the premiers really closely and tries to take out the things that worked," Scott told reporters at Arden Street training on Tuesday.
"Now we're going to play Jarrad Waite, Mason Wood and Ben Brown this week, so that gives a bit of an indication as to what our view is.
"Jack Riewoldt's an exceptional forward and Richmond have got their own system, but I'm sure if they had an All-Australian key forward on their list as well he'd probably play."
The inclusion of the 192-centimetre Wood is set to make for an imposing attack as he joins fellow talls Brown and Waite up forward, a system in stark contrast to Richmond's high-energy engine room revolving around Riewoldt.
North Melbourne are still undecided on their best ruckman set-up and will the use the clash to scope out whether Todd Goldstein and Braydon Preuss can play in tandem throughout the year.
"It's a bit like the forward set-up," Scott said.
"If you've got two really, really good key forwards you to tend to play them both, but if one's ahead of the other maybe your structure takes precedence."
Team structure was predominantly behind laconic big man Majak Daw's omission as the Kangaroos attempt to refashion him into a defender.
"Richmond plays one key forward," Scott explained.
"We were really encouraged by some of things he did in the first JLT game.
"We're still really optimistic that he can play a role in our back half, but this week's not the week to do it."
Scott said the club was inching closer to "full availability" with the addition of Wood, Preuss, Jy Simpkin, Taylor Garner, Jamie Macmillan and Tom Murphy.
"We wanted to play pretty close to (our best) 22 this week, rather than the full 26, to get full game time into the guys that we think are a good chance for round one."
The JLT fixture might not be the Kangaroos' final hit-out ahead of kick-starting their season against the Gold Coast on March 24, with plans afoot to seek AFL permission to play a practice match against VFL side Williamstown to punctuate a lengthy 17-day break.
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