SEAN Harding will carry the honour of number one draft pick into the Ballarat Futsal Centre’s debut premier league season.
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Harding, 24, was last night taken by Eureka FC coach Michael Busija with his first selection in the draft, which was held at St Georges Reserve in Sebastopol.
The Australian-born Harding lived in Ireland since he was five years old and played soccer in the Irish Premier League before joining the Ballarat Red Devils in 2012.
He then spent last season in the Victorian Premier League with Green Gully and has aspirations of reaching the A-League in the short-term future.
With playing coaches Paul McClounan (Eastern City Razorbacks), Michael Trigger (Southern Strikers), Matt Jamieson (Lucas Inter) and Marcus Lynch (Central Scorchers) ranked as round-one picks and going via a pre-draft, and Busija going further down in the draft, Northern Fusion drew the overall second pick due to coach Corey Smith being sidelined with injury.
Fusion selected Kyran Taylor as the overall second pick, before all six clubs re-entered the draft.
The other first-round selections were Alex Antonelli (Southern Strikers), Josh Ellen (Eureka FC), Jason Spirovski (Central Scorchers), Gerry Verde (Lucas Inter), Liam Harding (Eastern City Razorbacks) and Pietro Angeli (Northern Fusion).
There was also nine rookies selected to fill-in when needed.
The premier league season will officially kick-off on October 21, with matches being played at 7pm, 8pm and 9pm every Monday night.