Only five days ago, Scott Harding was a delisted AFL player who was recovering from foot injuries and wondering if his senior football career was done.

Then came the Friday afternoon phone call from Port Adelaide that changed everything.

On Tuesday, the former Brisbane utility became the surprise selection of the pre-season draft when the Power took him with the No.6 pick.

Harding had flown from Brisbane to Adelaide on Sunday night and had a light run with the Power on Monday morning.

His rehabilitation from a foot stress fracture meant Harding could not train at full intensity.

But Port had done their homework and once they interviewed him, they knew he was their man.

"It's been an absolute rollercoaster, the last couple of days, up until Friday there hadn't been much talk going around," he said.

"The next thing I know, I'm going to move to Adelaide, so it's all happened pretty quickly.

"There's that element of excitement, but there's also the element of sadness, because I'm moving away from family and everything, but that's how it is and everyone will come to accept that."

Apart from having to leave his family, Harding's girlfriend Romy Poulier is an actress who has just landed a role in a TV show being shot on the Gold Coast.

"When you're let go by a club, your opportunities become pretty scarce, you can't pick and choose," Harding said.

Harding played 15 senior games this year for a total of 48.

He needed injections in his foot for the last five games of the regular season and then suffered a stress fracture in the elimination-final win over Carlton.

"I had the double whammy in the same foot for a while there," he said.

But Port football manager Peter Rohde is confident Harding will recover well and prosper at his new club.

"We've had our eye on him for a quite a while ... we always thought he was one of the better players who had been delisted," he said.

"With all the younger guys we've drafted, we thought it would be good to have one more mature person on our list.

"We've done a bit of investigation on him, obviously - he's going to need some modified training for a little while, but we're pretty confident that after Christmas he'll be up and going."

As expected, two of Harding's former Brisbane team-mates also found new homes in the pre-season draft, with Joel Macdonald going to Melbourne and Sydney taking Daniel Bradshaw.

The AFL also held the rookie draft on Tuesday morning and the revised rule, where each club can pick two mature-age players as rookies, meant several others received second chances.

Hawthorn hope to boost their weakened ruck stocks with former Western Bulldog Wayde Skipper, the Power recruited former Collingwood and Carlton big man Cameron Cloke and much-maligned ex-Richmond player Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls has gone to West Coast.

New club Gold Coast had their first draft picks with the opening five choices of the rookie draft.

Former North Melbourne onballer Daniel Harris and ex-Collingwood youngster Danny Stanley were among their selections.

Sudan-born ruckman Majak Daw has joined North Melbourne and Sean Yoshuira (Brisbane) becomes the first Japanese-born player to make an AFL list.

Richmond used their fifth-round pick to re-draft Graham Polak, the Tiger who suffered brain damage when hit by a tram last year.

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