Against Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on Friday night, Scott says he'll try something different to stop being heavily scored against from centre bounces.

"The main one, to be honest, is how we address conceding 130 points from centre bounces," he said.

"There have been changes to the centre bounce system and we talk about that we're a little bit limited in terms of how we can defend them.

"But the reality is the second-worst team at defending centre bounces is conceding less than half the amount of scores we are - we have conceded 130 points, the next-worse has conceded 62."

With North last on the ladder with just one win from five games, Scott had studied every centre bounce involving his club and also what every other team in the competition was doing.

"Part of it has been credit to the opposition, they have moved the ball well against us," he said.

"But we haven't defended it anywhere near well enough.

"We will look different this week in the way we go about it. And we just have to keep chipping away at it.

"I have got no doubt that it will smooth out as the season goes on but right at the moment, there are a lot of factors that we not doing anywhere near well enough but that is the one that is costing us the most."

Scott has made three changes to his side for the trip to Adelaide, recalling Luke McDonald, Nick Larkey and Tarryn Thomas at the expense of Paul Ahern, Bailey Scott and Jy Simpkin.

Port, well-placed with three wins and two losses, have kept the same side that upset reigning premiers West Coast in Perth last weekend.

Australian Associated Press