A State of Origin hangover may be hurting North Queensland - but it's not the Cowboys' only source of headaches.

After North Queensland suffered its fourth loss in five games, football manager Peter Parr confirmed the club would seek a "please explain" from NRL referees boss Robert Finch following the controversial 16-14 loss to South Sydney.

The Cowboys were left fuming after Saturday night's narrow loss at Townsville, claiming a "blatant" offside was missed in the lead-up to Souths' 76th minute match-winning penalty goal.

NRL referees consultant Bill Harrigan confirmed that off-side Souths players had tackled Cowboys fullback Matt Bowen in-goal following reserve Beau Champion's attempted field goal, but were not penalised.

Instead of Souths being penalised, North Queensland was forced to boot a goal-line drop-out and in the next set of six the Rabbitohs earned the vital penalty that sealed the result.

"There's no risk in the world that they should have got that (off-side)," Harrigan told Channel Nine.

"We want either the referee, touch judge or video referee to pick instances up like that and get it right and they didn't...that will be discussed on the Monday review...with Robert Finch and his staff.

"It still comes back to the referee. I run them on skills on this, there's a kick and the first thing for the referee to do is to ... scan for on-side, off-side and then turn to see where the ball is coming down."

A seething Parr admitted the Cowboys - who boasted up to six Maroons representatives this year - were feeling the Origin pinch.

"Origin no doubt has had a fairly big impact on the club but the last two weeks we have got ourselves in a position to win and we haven't gone on with it," he said.

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