Sitting second-last on the ladder with two wins from 14 games and managing a playing list riddled with injuries, Richmond is in finals mode.

Despite the circumstances of their rebuild, coach Adem Yze is demanding his team has a September mindset as they try to derail rivals' aspirations.

Their next test is the Saturday twilight game against Collingwood, who are 11th and half a game behind 10th-placed North Melbourne in the battle for a Wildcard berth.

While it is four years since their last finals series and six years since the end of their premiership three-peat, Yze is using the veterans of those glory days to drive high standards at Punt Rd.

"We have a theme around, if it was a preliminary final this weekend, how would our recovery look? What would our training standards look like?," Yze said on Friday.

"We need our players to be prepared for that.

"Our older players are driving that. They know what it's like, leading into a finals series.

"We don't have the finals carrot, but we can have the right mindset and the right behaviours."

Richmond is coming off an ugly loss to North. The margin was only 25 points, but the Tigers scored just six goals in sunny conditions.

"There's a lot to gain and, to be fair, based on last weekend we need to rectify our performance," Yze said.

He is keen to build up the importance of their games for the rest of the season and the Tigers' potential to be a pre-finals fly in the ointment for opponents.

"When we come up against teams fighting for a position in the eight and we get a chance to deny that, I'm going to put that pressure on them," Yze said.

"We'll be testing ourselves this weekend. We want to put Collingwood into a contest and play with some flair on offence."

Richmond's injury issues are starting to ease, as it regains Rhyan Mansell and Jack Ross in the AFL, with several other players making VFL returns.

"When all of those highly talented players start to play some games of footy together, it's going to be pretty exciting," Yze said.