SPORTS clubs in small communities such as Duri, Dungowan, Somerton, Piallamore and Kootingal are set to benefit from more than $500,000 in state government grant funding.
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Group 4 clubs Kootingal-Moonbi and Dungowan are among the community groups in line to benefit from the Stronger Country Communities Fund grants.
Both clubs will receive $186,881 to upgrade the lighting at their fields.
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"We have been aiming to upgrade the lights with a plan of playing some night football games," Brady said.
"We have a ladies tag team and we're hoping to field a reserve grade team as well this season. With new lights we can cater for all our players."
Roosters treasurer Andrew Yeo said the funding would benefit the entire Kootingal community.
"This will make such a massive, massive difference," he said. "Coming out of this drought, this funding is just the shot in the arm communities like ours need," Yeo said.
"This ground is not exclusively for the footy team, there are many other community events held here including junior soccer and now as the senior team moves up a division, we're hoping to hold some home games here as well."
Meanwhile, the Piallamore, Duri and Somerton communities will each receive funding to help upgrade their tennis courts and associated facilities.
Somerton Tennis Club President, George Gardner said the shared funding for the local courts will be a real boost for the community.
"We've had some new people move into the village and they asked if they could have a game of tennis.
"With this funding I hope we'll be able to replace the old ant-bed and granite surface with an artificial surface and we can keep the interest going," Mr Gardner said.
"If we get a new surface I reckon many of the local farming families will want to come in for a hit when the weather cools down."
Long-time supporter of the Duri Tennis Club, Lorraine Ryan said the funding news was "amazing".
"The courts need a bit of a face lift, so this news is very timely," she said.
Chairman of the Piallamore Recreation Ground committee, Mark Stass said the funding announcement was a "brilliant amount".
"We had an old bitumen-based court which crumbled. We then replaced it with a sand-base surface but had some problems with drainage, now we have this funding, this will be the icing on the cake," he said.
"This is just what the community is looking for, it is just wonderful news."
