Gunemba proved a handful for Rapatona’s defence to contain and had the home crowd cheering every time he touched the ball.
The vocal moral backing gave him the impetus to draw the scores after Rapatona had been one up.
The win put Morobe Kumuls on 16 points behind Hekari United, who moved up the competition ladder with 17 points after beating Besta Madang Fighters 6-0 at Telikom Park in Port Moresby on Saturday.
In the earlier game, Gelle Hills celebrated their first victory in their opening game of round two with a convincing 6-0 whitewash of Madang Fox to moved up the ladder on 15 points.
The Flying Fox country boys had no answer to the Central boys onslaught as they went on a scoring spree after leading 2-0 at halftime interval and stretching lead with another four goals in the second half. Hills are now sitting on 15 points.
Jubilant Kumuls coach Max Foster was overwhelmed with the win and attributed it to the boys playing a more coordinated football and said they stuck to their basic game plan to come from behind to wrap up the game.
“I’m overwhelmed in front of our home crowd and I dedicate the win to all our supporters and followers at LFA. The credit goes to the boys,” Foster said.
Rapatona trainer /coach Clement Cafu Anison was disappointed with the result and blamed the poor refereeing which contributed to his team’s loss.
“We could have won but the referee gave our game away and I’m disappointed with many of his rulings. We should improve on the standard of refereeing in the country if we want to see the development of the code,” Anison said.
Rapatona got into the thick of action with Percy Mataio, Tapas Posman, Kailou Pouru leading their frontal assault with aerial raids into Morobe’s territory.
Their backs were also in full control of the ball with John Baulo, Richard Lapan and Chique Posman keeping a tight lid in their backs by denying Morobe’s strikers Gunemba, Daniels and Allan Kanbai from getting closer to their goal mouth area.
The Manusians kept probing for opportunities before striker Mataio wrong footed Morobe’s cover defence combination of Mathew Yang, Cyril Muta and Rodney Taulau to score their opening goal to lead 1-nil into the break.
In the second half, Kumuls Gunemba, Daniels, Michael Foster and Goroba Tawa kept on pounding at Rapatona’s defence.
Their efforts were rewarded midway into the second half when Rapatona were penalised inside the 18 metre penalty area and Gunemba made no mistake to level the score at 1-all.
Just before fulltime Kumuls kept applying pressure into Rapatona’s territory with Yang, Rodney and Roniel Igens working extra hard in the backs to send a good ball to Daniels to set up Muta to head home the winner 2-1.