A phone call early on Monday morning has rapidly shifted the entire week for Richmond, with the game against West Coast on Thursday evening postponed and a clash with Melbourne at the MCG shoehorned into the R5 fixture on Sunday.

"Our club got in contact with us as early as 6am yesterday morning, which is effectively when they found out," Tigers captain Trent Cotchin said on Tuesday.

"Our whole week changes...but we all know that this year has some pretty big differences to a normal year and you need to be flexible."

Playing on Thursday night would have been an ideal way to bounce back, but now the Tigers will have another main training session to work out any faults that have stopped them from firing since the season re-start.

One of those issues the skipper highlighted was adapting to the absence of the crowd and relying on self-motivation.
 
"It's a whole range of different things, learning to accept that the environment is different," Cotchin said.

"We’re really blessed as the Richmond Footy Club to have such an amazing support. In reality to a lot of different clubs, we aren't quite used to having no noise in the stadium. You have to create your own energy."

Despite a loss to the Saints in round four, Cotchin is confident the tide has already started to turn and the team will be back to their best when they face Melbourne.

"Last week's game, albeit St Kilda came and played really well, ... was an improvement on the week before," Cotchin said.

"And these things do take a week or two to come into full effect."

With the game against West Coast now to be played down the track, the possibility of Richmond having to head to a hub interstate increases.

"There's going to be a number of different individual cases or scenarios – we've got guys with pending babies and other challenges that we'll just have to manage accordingly," Cotchin said.

"The most important thing is [that] our partners feel supported."