Winter claimed 5-85 in his first class debut to gift South Australia a slender first innings lead against Victoria at Adelaide Oval on Saturday.

A Cameron White century (149) guided Victoria to 371 in reply to the Redbacks' total of 379, but it wasn't Winter's bowling figures that proved he belongs at first class level.

It was the left-arm quick's desperation to bowl just "one more" over to a Test batsman with a point to prove.

That batsman was Peter Handscomb, playing his final tune-up game before heading to South Africa with his eye on reclaiming his spot in Australia's Test XI.

"I was going to stop bowling but I said to Coops [captain Tom Cooper] 'we'll go one more' and we just really tried to target going full and straight," Winter said.

"It's pretty obvious with the Dukes that they swing more so we just tried to target his stumps. He crunched the one before that so maybe he thought he could capitalise on those drives and lucky enough for us he just inside edged that one."

Winter rattled Handscomb's stumps to continue a dream debut that has been a long time coming after he signed a rookie contract with South Australia for the 2013-14 season.

He battled inconsistent form and and injury ultimately saw him lose his deal last season, before he forced his way back into a full-time contract this summer.

Waiting so long made for a nervous start to his Shield debut but when he knocked over Marcus Harris for 66 the nerves dissipated.

"With the ball, I was probably a little bit nervous early and I think that's pretty common amongst debutants," Winter said.

"Once I tried to relax and getting that first wicket definitely helped, and then it just almost became back to normal and I was just able to go from there.

"The year I lost my rookie contract I had a bad injury where I missed six months so it was probably inevitable that I lost that.

"I had a good year off-contract last year and then fought back to get a full one this year, so hopefully things take care of themselves.

"I feel like I'm this year becoming a bigger member of the team. I played four one-dayers this year and with the Strikers I was in the squad a couple of times and near-misses to playing.

"To get my first Shield game on top of that caps off a pretty nice year so far and hopefully that can keep going."

Winter struck three times in quick succession to remove Harris, Travis Dean, and Handscomb on day two, and he finished the job when he picked up Chris Tremain and Jon Holland on day three.

"It was looking a little bit daunting there at 0-100 and we were a little bit concerned," Winter said.

"I thought we bowled collectively really well but just a few little things didn't go our way. To get three quickly there helped us get a little bit of momentum back."

The Redbacks were 5-208 at stumps on day three, an overall lead of 216.