So can you use the shoulder charge with ball in hand then? The use of the charge can be used both ways, but people only moan about it in defence. When people are skittled using it with ball in hand no-one bats an eyelid.

Nobody much expects you to use both arms in a tckle when you're holding the ball though do they?

Yes it is, but a better spectacle and much faster.
After having withdrawal symptoms following the GF, I've been watching some of my rugby DVDs including all the finals since 2007.
Among my DVDs is a copy of the 1965 CC final when Hunslet were [irobbed[/i by Wigan. Those were the days of real hard rugby league, with proper scrums and real hookers.If that game were to be played today, it would have probably ended up as a 7 a side match.
R.I.P. Bernard Prior and Fred Ward.

I would keep it, and heavily punish anyone not bending their back enough to hit below the shoulders. I think it set our game apart, and all the pros I've seen are coming out saying the want it to stay.

..those same pros being part of the problem. Those same guys who will jump up and down today about how the shoulder charge should stay will be the first to sue the sport if/when they suffer from permanent long-term injury. If there was no such threat - with a clear precedent being set in the NFL - then nobody would touch the shoulder charge, even if players were dying early from repeated head knocks.

Again, I fail to get the idea that the shoulder charge somehow differentiates the game from other sports - which basically means RU. I'd have thought the lack of lineouts, fat props and contested scrums already did that.