The 31-year-old, who retired from netball last season after playing for the Adelaide Thunderbirds in 2017, has been training with the Vixens since returning from Utah with husband and NBA star Joe two weeks ago.

She also played for Melbourne University last weekend in the Victorian Netball League.

Melbourne unveiled Ingles (nee Hallinan) as a training partner late on Thursday afternoon, and she is expected to start at wing defence in place of Chloe Watson, who is battling a knee injury. Defender Jo Weston is also under an injury cloud, battling an ankle complaint.

Should Ingles replace Watson, she will line up on in-form Giants captain Kim Green.

"Someone as experienced, classy and just the calibre of player that she is, it'll definitely add to their game," Green said.

"They're playing some really good netball. We always have good tussles with Vixens. If anything we play in a similar style to Vixens so it's always a really good match-up."

Ingles spent most of her career in Melbourne but moved to Adelaide at the start of 2012. She gave birth to twins Jacob and Milla in 2016 and took a year off the sport before returning for the Thunderbirds last year and ultimately announcing her retirement.

She has been keeping fit in Utah through long-distance running, and maintaining a frequent regime of netball drills.

Her and husband Joe returned to Australia soon after the Utah Jazz were beaten by Houston in the NBA playoffs. The next NBA season doesn't begin until October, which means Ingles should be available for the remainder of the Super Netball season.

Ingles joins the second-placed Vixens ahead of one of the games of the season so far, up against a Giants outfit which has also managed three wins from their first four games.

Fresh in the memory of the Vixens will be last season's preliminary final in Melbourne which the Giants won by eight points.

"We've been able to isolate them in different passages of play, we know how to do it it's just a matter of getting out there and actually doing it," Green said.

"They look like they have a really good culture and they've all grown up together. They know each other's play inside out, that's something that really sits well with them and something that we're going to have to try and break up a little bit.

"We can take a lot of confidence from last week, we played a really good game. Firebirds are so hard, people aren't putting them up there to be top contenders but when you've got Geitzy [Laura Geitz] down one end and Romelda [Aiken] down the other, that's a pretty good line-up.

"I was really proud of the girls, we don't want what happened in the Swifts game to happen again."

The Giants' only loss this season came when they gave up a fourth-quarter lead against the Swifts in round three.