As for the standard of play, well, apart from Joy? ........
We are soooo far behind it's embarrassing.
And to give you an example, Joy beat Method / Ducks (whatever) 5 to 0 in under 3 mins, and that is all 5 points being amassed in under 3 mins and they only lost one guy in the last game in the last few seconds according to Magued .. if that don't sum it up then I don't know what does.
Joy are a great indicator to the level of play Stateside and as such, we are in deep sh!t with the Millennium series already won I think. The places underneath, are just crumbs for which the rest scramble, and are meaningless in terms of competition just like a four legged horse winning a race when all the others have 3.
With the industry at present in decline, and with budgets being hacked to death all over the place, there isn't much chance of us putting together a team with sufficient resources to compete, basically, we have to hope they are dragged down to our level if we wish to gain some sort of parity.