Courtside Collection: Meet the Double Act Driving Taipans Game Night

Some couples do dinner and a movie.

Renee Accatino and Roderick “Roddy” Mabo quietly conduct the cues, the chaos and the soundtrack that carries the Cairns Convention Centre on game-night.

When the lights drop and the Orange Army rises, the couple are the double act most fans will never fully notice. But they are a quiet force, building the atmosphere the same way they have built their life, together.

Renee is the Taipans’ game-day coordinator, living on the sideline with a headset on and eyes everywhere.

Roddy is the arena DJ, stationed behind the soundboard, steering the mood of the building in real time.

The pair met while working at Star 102.7. Roddy was doing promo at a corporate golf day, while Renee was part of the sales team.

They have been together for nine years and on Taipans nights, it shows in the small ways, the quick handovers, the silent signals, the shared instincts.

“It’s my favourite thing I’ve done for a job,” Renee says of game night.

“You get the buzz, you’re in the stadium, people are going crazy, you’re reacting to what’s going on. 

“Because we’ve got such a great crowd in Cairns, it just adds to the element of what we do on game night and supports what the boys are doing out on the court.

“I think we do a great job with the entertainment side for a smaller club, we really try to pull out as much as we can. From an activation perspective I think we nail it.”

Renee’s history with the Taipans stretches back more than a decade.

She MC’d, hosted after-parties and eventually became a backup DJ during those pop-up stadium days when the Cairns Convention Centre was being renovated.

Later, she moved into operations, piecing together full game nights, entertainment planning, timings, activations, all the moving parts fans rarely see.

The NBL24 season ended with Renee “heavily pregnant”, still moving around the court, still pushing to get every detail right. The final home game was in mid-February, her due date mid-March and she was still in motion.

Since having their son, Castiel, she has stepped back from the full start-to-finish planning and focused more on on match-day delivery, but game night has become even more personal.

Roddy grew up on NBA culture, a Chicago Bulls man with a soft spot for the LA Lakers. His musical foundations lean toward the great performers and smooth hitmakers, Michael Jackson, Prince, Bruno Mars and Chris Brown.

When the Taipans needed a new DJ two seasons ago, Renee roped Roddy into the new gig.

He began with the Cairns Dolphins and Cairns Marlins and when he first stepped into the Taipans DJ chair, he wanted to bring more of that Chicago flavour, more R&B, more hip hop, more energy in the pockets of the game where a crowd can be lifted.

“The first day was nerve-racking,” Roddy says.

The night before, he watched old clips, trying to learn the calls and cues. Then he arrived, sat in the chair and realised he was not simply playing songs, he was helping lead an arena.

“I was sweating. Introductions started, I’ve never been so fixated on my laptop,” he laughs.

“Intros are the scariest part. If the tech stuffs up, you just have to stay calm and try and get it working.”

He scrapped the playlist he was given and rebuilt it around his own sound, while catering to the players and fans. He could see it landing, sections of the crowd moving with it, stars around the league responding and the room answering back.

The job is just as much about the songs as it is the timing, choosing the right sound for fouls, free throws and the coach’s challenge, then knowing when to get out of the way.

“With the coach’s challenge, I wanted something new that got everybody involved,” Roddy says, explaining an Italian techno edit he added to make that moment feel more alive.

“I’ll look at Joe Blake, it’s a dead giveaway when he’s about to play his drum, so I’ll cut the music.

“There’s a ‘defence’ beat I got from the Lakers, when he’s on his drum I’ll try to match him and the crowd.”

Renee is still connected through the headset, even while she is on the floor. She knows the playlist inside out and will steer Roddy if the energy needs a shift.

And when the broadcast finds the loyal fans, they lean into it. Taipans superfan Al appears on the big screen chanting, “Let’s go Taipans”, and the building follows.

“It really is like a family,” Roddy says.

On game night, it becomes a family routine.

“All three of us are in the car for game night. It’s a real family affair,” Renee says.

Her daughter, Summer, has been scanning tickets for the past couple of seasons, one of those familiar faces fans might pass at the doors without realising she is part of the same behind-the-scenes team. 

Castiel usually heads to Nana and Pop’s while the trio roll into a home clash.

Roddy has a full-time IT support role at Wuchopperen Health Service, so weekday games can be tight. Renee will often go in early to set up Roddy’s DJ station, then he rolls in and takes over.

Behind the noise is the quieter part of their partnership, the playlist-building process, which has become its own kind of Friday date night.

“We’ll do a bunch of downloading of songs with lots of drinks, play music, have a blast,” Renee says. “Then I’ll go through and edit the songs we choose. When it comes to the behind-the-scenes music, we do that as a joint effort.”

Even their traditions are tied to the building. At the last home game each season, Renee takes a photo at the Convention Centre with Castiel. The first was just before he was born, the next was holding him and now it is a yearly marker.

When the lights drop and the Orange Army rises, Renee and Roddy are already in motion, cue by cue, song by song, making the night feel like Cairns.