The sad analogy would have rung true for those not surprised by the admission of the company's board a few days earlier.

The admission, encouraged by the company's looming statement of financial accounts due at the end of August, would have been unthinkable even six months ago.

When Gunns told the Australian Securities Exchange that its board no longer regarded its proposed $3 billion Bell Bay pulp mill as a ``probable to proceed'' project it was public acknowledgment finally that the company might not survive the toughest and most drawn out battle of its long and distinguished career.

Gunns bosses had argued defiantly for nearly a decade that the company would pull off the pulp mill project to give the state its biggest development to date and confirm the company's future.

But those who watched the meteoric rise of  the small, privately-owned Northern Tasmanian timber miller to one of Australia's top 100 companies knew that the bull of a company started bleeding from the limbs a long time ago.

And its rise to national timber giant status before its lingering demise mirrored the career of the man whose name became as one with Gunns - John Gay.

Gunns' moment in the sun would not have happened without the smart and fearless Mr Gay, regarded by friends and enemies as a bit of a bull himself, hooves pawing at the dirt, steam rising from his nostrils ready to charge through business obstacles.

But it was Mr Gay's combative nature that contributed to the company's demise, pushing the banks that carried Gunns' huge debts to remove him in 2010 and bring in Greg L'Estrange to salvage the pieces.

He would not budge in the company's battle against the conservation movement nationally to get pulp mill approval.

And he would not step out of the spotlight to allow a more diplomatic face of the company to handle the flak while he got on with the business of running the company.

Mr Gay was recruited by Gunns in 1973 as timber manager and immediately made his presence felt.

He had learned the sawmilling business from his father Hughie and ran his own mill after leaving school - Hobart's prestigious Hutchins private boys' school - as soon as he could.

Hutchins' headmaster had told his father when he left that ``John will pass no exams but he will never be short of a bob''.

The Gunns board appointed him general manager in 1982, then managing director three years later.

Local sawmillers didn't appreciate his ``crash through or crash'' approach as he bought up mills for their timber allocations, often discarding the infrastructure, to steadily build his company's dominance of the local industry.

But he built an intensely loyal staff, many of whom were still with the company 20 and 30 years later, and Gunns was a generous and sought-after contributor to its local community - until the battle for the Bell Bay pulp mill.

Former Launceston Chamber of Commerce president and Examiner Newspaper chief executive Lloyd Whish-Wilson said that Gunns stunned the business world when Mr Gay staged the successful takeover of North Broken Hill's timber resource, in the mid-1980s.

North Broken Hill was at that stage the owner of Associated Pulp and Paper Mills Ltd and had gained control of Kilndried Hardwood Pty Ltd, based in Launceston but with extensive interests in Southern Tasmania.

The amalgamation of Kilndried Hardwood, a publicly listed company, and Gunns took place in 1986 after shareholding complications were worked out.

A new board including some of the North's most influential business people at the time was appointed.

That started Gunns' aggressive program of major expansion.

``They made a lot of money for a long while,'' Mr Whish-Wilson said.

``It was huge at the time - people forget that Gunns was one of Australia's top 100 companies.''

But the company greatly under-estimated the community's reaction to the proposed pulp mill, said Mr Whish-Wilson, a long-time friend of Mr Gay.

Northern Tasmanian financial analyst Tony Gray agrees that Gunns' troubles started with the pulp mill and also with another financial burden that the company still carries.

``They (Gunns) had a vision for being large in the (national) plantation space and were looking at value adding (the pulp mill),'' Mr Gray said.

``They were on the path to being the biggest national forestry operation.''

Then the decision was made to move to acquire the South Australian-based company Auspine.

It was 2007.

``By the time that the acquisition was made they (Gunns) were already going down the path of the pulp mill,'' he said.

The company and the public knew that Gunns had to raise significant capital - then the global financial crisis hit.

Gunns acquired Auspine on debt and probably because of external economic conditions, did not immediately launch a capital raising to benefit from it.

The company still carries some of the debt from the Auspine acquisition.

Mr Gray believes that it was from then that conditions started to turn against the timber giant.

``Hindsight would probably tell you not to push ahead with the pulp mill but I guess that they thought they had everything covered,'' he said.

``It was different to Wesley Vale (pulp mill) when there were no guidelines - Gunns had done everything asked of them in contrast.''

Timing - everything in business - was no longer on the company's side.

Tasmania went into a state election cycle when the pulp mill was announced and it was not an election issue but by the time of the next election it had become a huge community issue, Mr Gray said.

``I can remember (former Greens leader) Bob Brown saying that the wedge-tailed eagle would be extinct if the pulp mill went ahead - he said it,'' Mr Gray said.

In November, 2007, Malcolm Turnbull, then federal environment minister, went to election without signing approvals for the proposed Bell Bay mill.

``If he'd signed before the share price fell away Gunns could have raised the money for Auspine and the pulp mill,'' Mr Gray said.

The share price dropped as the global financial crisis hit and the market fell out of the forest Managed Investment Schemes in which Gunns had become a major player.

At the same time woodchip prices plummeted.

``John Gay took risks to build Gunns into one of Australia's top 100 companies then went into debt to buy Auspine,'' Mr Gray said.

``He was very successful and there was an element of good timing about it but then the exact opposite happened.''

Mr Gray agrees with Mr Whish-Wilson that Mr Gay's personality didn't help the company.

``He was a bull at the gate when a softly-softly approach might have worked better to get the pulp mill approval through,'' he said.

``He was a hero when things worked but when they didn't he became the villain.''

Mr Gray, like other commentators, is disparaging of Mr L'Estrange's appointment as managing director in 2011, replacing Mr Gay.

 ``Apart from acting as an in-house liquidator, what else has he done,'' he said.

Besides, the bull was already bleeding.