Lindsay Thomas must address his 'mental demons' in front of goal, or risk being omitted, according to North Melbourne coach Brad Scott.

The small forward has been one of the Kangaroos' most consistent players in the first seven rounds, but copped criticism on Sunday after missing two gettable shots.

"My first priority when I got to North Melbourne was to make sure Lindsay Thomas had a fierce attack on the ball, he had intensity at the contest and he tackled extremely hard," Scott told Mike Sheahan on Fox Footy's On the Couch.

"On the weekend everyone wants to talk about the two misses. He still kicked three goals.

".... But he's there to kick goals and I will keep putting Lindsay front and centre in a position where he's got to take the shot for the team.

"At the moment he's missing too many easy shots. There will come a point where Lindsay's value doesn't warrant being in the side. At the moment I still believe it does. There is no doubt that those misses on the weekend were demoralising to the rest of the team, now he's got to get over his mental demons or he'll be out."

Scott also fielded questions regarding the form of Todd Goldstein.

"Todd's far from his best, but you don't lose your capability overnight," he said.

Goldstein was dropped to VFL affiliate North Ballarat a fortnight ago, and racked up 64 hit-outs before being recalled against the Bulldogs.

"We dropped him back and he responded really well in the VFL. Like most of the team he didn't have a great game on the weekend, but I'm super-confident that Todd Goldstein will get back to his best form and get back quickly," Scott added.

"He rucked pretty much 95% of games last year, so if you are rucking that amount of game-time when most other sides don't have a ruckman in the ruck that often, you would hope you'd get your hands to the ball a fair bit. Your total numbers would look high."

Scott believes the re-emergence of Hamish McIntosh has affected Goldstein's mindset, but he's still confident the two-ruck model can work.

"Now with Hamish coming back who I still believe is a genuine top-line ruckman, subconsciously or consciously, he (Todd) feels that with McIntosh there to give him a rest? he's not bringing the same intensity to games.

"I've said from the start that while I believe if Goldy and Hamish are both playing their best that they can work in the same side. The big proviso there is that they are both playing their best, and if they are not, we'll make a change, and we've shown we'll make that change."

Highly-touted key-position player Lachlan Hansen has spent an extended period at VFL level, and will be forced to produce some stand-out performances to be considered.

"Lachie (Hansen) would be very disappointed to be playing in the VFL right at the moment, but he has some very clear things he needs to work on and at the moment he's not forcing his way past our other key forwards," Scott said.

"We've also got Nathan Grima playing in the VFL. Robbie Tarrant played in the VFL on the weekend. There are a lot of key-position players on our list. Lachie's got to push his way past.

"The time for Lachie to perform is upon us, and he's got to perform or he won't be picked."