Dizzy's first day underlines the challenge ahead

After 224 days without a formal head coach, and a game and a bit into what already looms as another challenging season, South Australia have finally welcomed their new supremo and long-time favourite son Jason Gillespie back into the fold.

Gillespie today completed his mandatory two-week hotel quarantine after returning from the UK where he had been since July as coach of Sussex, a position he had resumed before the SA Cricket Association finalised Jamie Siddons' replacement.

Scorecard: South Australia v Tasmania

His first day in the West End Redbacks training kit he donned in 58 first-class and 52 domestic one-day from 1995-2008 was a short one.

Having been separated from his family for four months, he was understandably keen to head home on being released from confinement but made an early stop at Karen Rolton Oval to supervise SA's warm-ups for day two of their Marsh Sheffield Shield match against Tasmania.

Redbacks skipper Travis Head had noted earlier in the year his squad had been training diligently under assistant coach Luke Butterworth in Gillespie's absence, with players keen to impress the highly regarded new coach when he eventually arrived to begin his tenure.

Gillespie would have been pleased with what he witnessed when play began – it took less than three overs for Chadd Sayers to remove Tasmania's nightwatchman Nathan Ellis – but by the time he climbed into his car for the 75km drive home to the Fleurieu Peninsula, a familiar tale was unfolding.

Following their 205-run loss to Western Australia in the opening round, SA were bowled out for 195 on day one against the Tigers and were facing a first-innings deficit by midway through day two.

Having finished bottom of the Shield ladder for the past three seasons, Gillespie's appointment came after a wide-ranging review of top level men's cricket in SA by former Test batter Mike Hussey that painted a stark picture of the issues the new coach will face.

But Head, who has played under Gillespie at Adelaide Strikers in the KFC BBL and was skipper when the team took the title in BBL|07, believes the new mentor's arrival heralds the start of a promising new chapter for the Redbacks.

"I think he's going to be fantastic for our group," Head told cricket.com.au recently.

"We've seen what he's been able to do at the Strikers, coming into a team that was pretty experienced and had some success, but to then take it to the next level.

"We work really well off each other, so we're excited to be getting down to work.

"He's very calm and very consistent in the way he goes about things.

"He controls the environment really well, and he's just there for the players.

"He's not too full on, he's not too in your face.

"He sort of sits back, he watches the cricket, he understands and reads people really well.

"He builds good relationships and guys absolutely love him.

"He motivates everyone in the squad, coaches and players, to get better and he's been fantastic with the Strikers so I'm sure it's going to be no different with the Redbacks."

Given SACA's rationale for instigating the Hussey review was the Redbacks' inability to win a Shield title since 1995-96 when Gillespie was a player, his track record for securing trophies made him an appealing candidate from the time SA and Siddons parted ways last March.

The 45-year-old took previously struggling Yorkshire to back-to-back county championship crowns two years after his appointment as head coach in 2012, and delivered the Strikers their first championship in his third campaign at the helm.

As an integral component of half of SA men's cricket's top-level trophy wins over the past 25 years – the other two were a domestic one-day crown in 2011-12 and a T20 title in 2010-11 prior to the BBL's birth – Gillespie brings rare kudos to his new role.

But as Callum Ferguson - who played alongside Gillespie in his early years at interstate level and is closing in on the record for most Shield appearances by a Redbacks player – reveals, it's as much the environment the former fast bowler creates as his technical coaching prowess that yields those results.

Until today, Ferguson had not played under Gillespie as a coach but knows enough about his former teammate, and of his reputation in Australia and England (where Ferguson has been a regular presence in recent northern summers) to foresee what he will bring.

"I've known him for a long time and spoken to a lot of people who have played under him around the world, so I'm aware he has a fantastic reputation and has experienced a fair bit of success through his leadership," Ferguson told cricket.com.au.

"My understanding is it's not so much hands-on with the coaching, but his real strength is with player relationships and reading a dressing room and I feel like that's something that will be of great benefit to this (Redbacks) playing group.

"Jamie (Siddons) was much more a hands-on coach, and very much a coach who was looking to develop techniques especially with batting, plus he brought great cricket nous from a tactical point of view.

"From my understanding, Jason gives a lot of ownership to the playing group and really maximises the knowledge of the players themselves.

"It will be really interesting to see how our group goes under that approach but I'm really excited and I think our young leaders are ready for that style of coach."