There's not much Juice left in the tank, but he will give it everything

Nicknamed 'Juice' after Juice Newton, the American pop and country singer of the 1980s, Newton will play his 100^th game on his 37^th birthday in Saturday's home clash against Myrtleford and while he hasn't declared he will officially retire, he admits it's close.

"The Ovens and Murray is not getting any easier, that's for sure," he said.

"There's certainly things that I used to be able to do on a field that I can't do anymore, or as well, I definitely feel that.

"The body is definitely letting me know I'm nearly 37, I'm not decided on what I'll do, my wife (Issy) is still at the netball and while she's still there, I'll stick around and maybe play in the 2's.

"Potentially yeah, it could be my last, but I don't want to write it off."

Newton arrived at the Pies in 2016 after a 28-game career at Melbourne (2005-2011) and a premiership with Norwood in the SANFL.

The full-forward has battled injuries through his career, which makes the century milestone even more significant.

"It's the first club I've got to 50 with, when I got to 50, it was a big deal," he offered.

Newton has had hamstring injuries in his O and M career, but retirement wasn't a genuine option.

"Not seriously, but I had questions marks over whether I wanted to play in the league again after what happened," he said.

Newton captained the Pies to the 2022 grand final win over Yarrawonga, but the O and M board stripped the club of the flag after it was found guilty of breaking the salary cap.

"I was disappointed with the league itself and the way they handled it," he revealed.

But his love for the club outweighed his anger.

"Loyalty is always something that's been a part of my blood and I wanted to stay the course with the boys," he said.

"We really wanted to prove some people wrong."

The Pies hopes of claiming the 2023 flag were derailed by Albury in the preliminary final, with a lack of midfield depth, due to departures over the previous summer and injuries, cruelling those dreams.

Wangaratta recruited five-star quality midfielders over last summer but, remarkably, is 0-4, albeit all losses have been close.

"We've just let ourselves down with execution, our turnover scores against us have really hurt us and our pressure in the first couple of games wasn't up to our standards," he suggested.

"On the weekend (against Yarrawonga) we turned that around and played some better footy, the last few games, things have been slowly turning."

History says it's almost impossible to finish in the top three after a 0-4 start, but any team that can push Yarrawonga to two points is capable of making an impact in finals.

However, the loser of the round five game between the winless Pies and Myrtleford will, realistically, be out of finals running after losing five matches.

Some of the O and M's best players of the modern era haven't played past their mid 30s - Wangaratta Rovers' Rob Walker was 35 when he won the last of his five Morris Medals in 2003, but never played again due to a neck injury - so Newton will look to make the most of his time.

And even though he admits it's not easy to keep producing at that age, it hasn't diminished his superb kicking technique, where he remains one of the best and most fluent kicks for goal of the past 20 years.

"One of the my main objectives now is to compete as hard as I can and play whatever role I get given to best help the team."