NORTH Melbourne coach Dean Laidley says that with just a fortnight to go before finals, his club simply has to go flat out for the next six weeks.

The Kangaroos occupy fourth, but are just half a game ahead of Adelaide and one ahead of the Swans, and face Geelong and Port Adelaide before September.

Other sides have played with their preparation as part of their build-up to the finals, but Laidley said the Roos were in no position to fiddle with selection.

"I don't think we can afford to – if we want to end up fourth, we've got to win probably these two games," he said from Arden Street on Thursday.

"I don't think we can afford to keep any of our powder dry.

"We're playing in September, which is terrific, and now it depends on how our form is over the next two weeks as to where we land.

"We're in pretty good form, which has been much more consistent in the back half of the year, and we want to keep that going."

Laidley said the side had to make sure it didn't get overwhelmed by the prospect of playing the premier.

"We won't change anything that we've been doing in our preparation – we'll do our opposition meeting this morning, and I'm sure it'll actually be a little bit shorter," he said.

"I think if you go into it too much it can become quite daunting.

"Let's concentrate on what we're trying to achieve and do it that way, rather than looking at the behemoth."

The Kangaroos found themselves at the centre of a public-comment storm earlier in the year when tagger Brady Rawlings admitted their gameplan for dealing with Geelong superstar Gary Ablett was built around corralling him rather than trying to tackle him.

That didn't stop Ablett producing one of the great games of recent times, accumulating 39 possessions, and Laidley said things might be different this time around with more than one player assigned to the role.

"Maybe the 18 out on the park," he said.

"Look, [he's] a very good player. We'll probably do things a little bit differently to what we did last time.

"He's always going to win his fair share of the football, so I'm sure we'll have some plans."