The Wolves were booed off the field after ending the regular season with a fourth successive defeat - and their heaviest at home - which was made even worse by news of a last-gasp win by Bradford, their play-off rivals for the fifth spot.

That means Warrington must now travel to Perpignan to take on the Catalans Dragons in the elimination play-off next Saturday, while Bradford - 18-16 winners over Castleford - meet Wigan at the JJB Stadium on Friday.

A thoroughly miserable night for the Wolves was compounded by the loss of skipper Adrian Morley and fellow forward Rob Parker through injury.

Huddersfield may have had little but pride to play for but they looked the more energetic side throughout and made a dream start with two tries in the first six minutes, with Chris Thorman and Stephen Wild making the most of gaping holes in the home defence. Thorman added both conversions to make it 12-0 before Warrington had managed to put together a worthwhile move.

England centre Martin Gleeson was cast into the unusual role of playmaker in the absence of the injured Lee Briers but it was full-back Chris Hicks who came up with the play for Warrington's only first-half try. He brushed off the attempted tackle of Thorman to race into a gap and sent winger Chris Riley over.

Two more Huddersfield tries came before the interval as Kevin Brown, playing out of his natural position at loose forward, stretched out of the tackle of Michael Monaghan to touch down and substitute Ryan Hudson marked his farewell appearance for Huddersfield by touching down a Thorman grubber kick that came off Monaghan.

Thorman kicked his fourth goal to make it 24-6 at half-time and stretched his side's lead further with a penalty six minutes into the second half.

Warrington finally managed to string together a slick passing move which enabled centre Matt King to grab their second try and that gave them the encouragement they needed. Winger Kevin Penny leapt above Martin Aspinwall to touch down Monaghan's high kick and, when hooker Jon Clarke profited from a handling error by Aspinwall, the Giants' lead was down to just six points.

However, Huddersfield made sure of the win when Wild regathered Luke Robinson's kick and hooker David Faiumu was on hand to score his first try for the club on his first start. Thorman then added a second penalty and converted a second try from Wild in the closing stages to finish with 18 points.