Mackintosh was part of a weary Highlanders squad which arrived at Dunedin International Airport yesterday morning after a long trip back from South Africa.
The team left Johannesburg at 6pm on Sunday night, and had a 14-hour flight to Sydney.
They then had a four-hour wait in Sydney before flying to Auckland and arriving in the Queen City about 12.30am yesterday.
The squad then got up at 5am to get from its Auckland hotel to the airport to travel to Dunedin, where it arrived just after 9am.
Mackintosh said it was a tough tour but felt they had come away with something from their three matches in South Africa.
The side had beaten the Cheetahs 31-24 at Bloemfontein, then lost 33-0 to the Stormers in Cape Town, before rounding off the tour with a 50-35 loss to the table-topping Bulls in Pretoria last Sunday.
"We obviously would have wanted to win all three games.
"But we had a debrief on Sunday and said not many teams are going to come away from Africa with five points.
"Then when you look at what the Stormers did to the Hurricanes.
"I don't know whether it gives you some sort of satisfaction but it shows how good a side they are.
"Then when you look at who we have played - the Blues, Crusaders, Stormers and Bulls.
"They are four of the top sides who are going to be right up there in the competition and we've played them all in the first five rounds.
"The guys are excited to be home and it's like we are now starting the second lap of the competition."
Next up for the side is a match against the Sharks at Carisbrook on Saturday night.
The Sharks are spending a few days in Queenstown before travelling to Dunedin tomorrow.
Mackintosh said the side is treating the next few games as absolute must-wins, starting with the Sharks.
"They have had four or five close losses so will be really keen for a win.
"But the boys are pretty excited about it and want to pay the Sharks back for last year.
"They gave us a bit of a tickle up in the front row last year and we as a forward pack want to pay back for that."
Mackintosh said the incident around loose forward Adam Thomson and inside back Michael Hobbs not being selected for the Bulls game because of missing a curfew after the Stormers match did not have a big impact on the game.
"It was nothing like drinking too much or that.
"The guys just broke team protocol.
"A rule had been broken which was set by the senior players."
Thomson and Hobbs returned home a day earlier than the rest of the squad.
