KEY POINTS:
Give Jamie Mackintosh time off from rugby and he will head back to the family's Southland sheep farm near Waimahaka, about 40 minutes drive from Invercargill.
He is comfortable there, out on the property owned by his parents Alistair and Kate, the peace and solitude acting as a
neat counterpoint to the incessant demands on a professional rugby player.
"The more I can completely switch off the better. Like me and my Dad bought 200 acres on the back of our already 600-acre farm so I have been fencing that up and I have just bought myself a chocolate lab pup and I've got my gun and a truck and I am right into it," he says.
Mackintosh wants to continue his farming and rugby mix down south and hopes others might see the benefit of spreading their rugby talent throughout the country.
Not that he was always convinced when he saw others who went to top-notch teams like Canterbury and the Crusaders making faster progress.
Some would argue, as Mackintosh acknowledged yesterday, that he has benefited from a slow burn to the top since he first represented New Zealand at under-16 national level. He is still in his early 20s and about to wear the All Blacks test jersey for the first time this weekend against Scotland.
At 1.92m and 128kgs, the loosehead prop nicknamed Whopper nominates All Black scrum guru Mike Cron as the central figure in his rise to the test team. Mackintosh has already been the butt of teammates' ribbing that he has spent more time in Cron's room than his own so far on tour.
"Since I was 16 he has been like my second dad. It is a bit of a team joke.
"He has been a pretty special figure in what I have done with his expertise and being a bit taller I have to work so much harder and if things don't go right he gives you the confidence he can fix it."
That sort of advice has already led to Mackintosh packing against Cron's hotel bed so the scrum boss can check his student's angles, feet and head position and grip are all in alignment.
Mackintosh said a shorter man might be able to get away with missing his hit but with his "long levers" if he got into a bad position he could be buckled quite easily.
He used to discuss those issues with the similar-sized Carl Hayman when he was at the Highlanders and thought he was far more consistent in his work these days.
His aim was to become more proficient on the tighthead side of the scrum so he could back up in next year's Tri-Nations. That was some way off though, now was all about doing the loosehead job consistently against Scotland.
His father should be in the stand watching as he was due to reach Edinburgh tomorrow to watch Whopper make his debut. Whopper?
Mackintosh chuckles and relates how Southland's Jocko Parker gave him the nickname when the young prop levered his massive frame on to the table and asked for some restorative massage.
Mackintosh's passion for his province riddles his conversation though he did confess, at times, he wondered if he would have to change allegiance if All Black honours were still eluding him at 25. That uncertainty passed as rugby in the Deep South took on even more meaning.
His family tree snakes up to Inverness where his grandfather was born and his great aunt still lives on a farmlet at Doon. On a free day this week, Mackintosh took time out to bus up to Stirling with some teammates to soak up some of the history in the area where the Battle of Bannockburn took place in 1314.
This is Mackintosh's second time in Scotland after a trip with the NZ Secondary Schools side which he said was "full of rock stars" with about 80 per cent going on to make the All Blacks.
This time he just wants to be able to leave Murrayfield feeling he has done his job well and has slotted in at the next level. For some time he has been touted as an All Black in waiting.
"It did not sit comfortably with me. I was a bit embarrassed about it and I didn't think I was really good enough and that is still one of my biggest fears," he confessed.
"I can't wait to get out there and hopefully find that I can find my feet at test level and stay here for a few years."
If that happens, he might also give his old mate Clarke Dermody a thank you call down at London Irish.
It was Dermody, a loosehead, who gave away some of his personal ambition and switched sides of the scrum so Mackintosh could start at loosehead.
"Yeah, me and Derm are pretty good mates and probably will be for the rest of our lives and that is the sort of thing he did for me. He was captain and played in the wrong position.
"Whatever I have done I owe a lot to him and maybe, coming down the track, Southland will have a really good loosehead coming so I might have to do the same thing," said Mackintosh.
