North Queensland captain Johnathan Thurston says he has a good working relationship with coach Neil Henry despite rumours of a falling out after State of Origin III.

Several Queensland players are believed to have mixed sleeping pills with energy drink Red Bull before the match in Brisbane as they celebrated their history-making fourth series win.

And reports have emerged claiming Maroons' assistant coach Henry had exchanged heated words with Thurston over the star halfback's preparation for the final match of the Origin series.

But after Saturday's 28-20 NRL loss to Penrith in Townsville, Thurston moved quickly to quash speculation he had fallen out with Henry.

"I don't know where those reports have come from but we would probably like to nip them in the bud because they are not true," Thurston said.

"We have a good working relationship, captain-coach relationship, we are honest with each other.

"I haven't read the papers so I don't know the full story. Like I said my focus now is on the Cowboys and keeping us in the eight to play semi-final football."

The Cowboy's second straight defeat has them on the brink of slipping out of the top eight, with a tough run-in ahead of them.

A daunting road double against the Gold Coast and Melbourne awaits in the next two rounds before the Bulldogs head up to north Queensland in round 23.

"Of course it is going to be tough," Thurston said.

"We will just go back to the drawing board and get our fundamental errors out of the game and our execution right and I think we can put the teams under the pump.

"We just haven't been doing that the last couple of weeks."

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