Well, if we were to award 1 bonus point for beating A-League/other member fed teams, these are the tallies below for the past 5 seasons.That is excellent work! I love this stuff.
I'm still not sold of the quality of NSW and think they get a lot of points there through sheer weight of numbers (teams) in the 32. When there are so many NSW clubs gifted spots, they will inevitably match up against each other, so good odds a few NSW teams always progress regardless of their quality.
I'd try a system that counts results against Member clubs from another federation than their own. Add to that any win or draw against A-League clubs, as that definately counts for something, but a loss to them should be excluded (think of this as bonus points). Then divide by the number matches played. So it's not exactly how far you get in the comp, but the results you achieve against certain opposition.
E.g. I would count a win for a NSW club against a WA/VIC/NT/ACT/TAS/QLD/SA club, but a win against another NSW or NNSW wouldn't count (I lump all NSW together). I'm thinking more of a Federation vs Federation ladder. NPL results are probably a strong indicator of where the Federations lie, but COVID times have screwed some of the comps. Modbury have done very well from the third tier!
I'm happy for TAS/NT/ACT to have a gaurateed spot. I would take 1.5 spots from NSW/NNSW and 0.5 from WA, and add one spot each to SA and VIC, leaving a playoff between NSW/NNSW and WA.
This is really rewarding for states that only have one team, again, Canberra Olympic's run in 2016 is carrying them.
Victoria is arguably the strongest, Queensland second, and then NSW. NNSW (I still kept them separate for the example) is being carried by only having two teams.
If we were to add yet another bonus point for beating an A-League team, that would look like this.
So NSW could keep their 6 teams, looking at these stats, but NNSW definitely shouldn't keep two. NSW should just be thankful for APIA Leichhardt.
My points system is flawed with this as a couple of the wins from state teams were penalty shootouts (e.g. Brisbane Strikers V Wellington...) so, I'd still give QLD another team.
Because coefficients only go from the past 5 seasons, SA cannot include Adelaide City's 2014 run to the quarterfinals (3 points), beating WSW and Brisbane Strikers (2 extra points), and 2015 where Metrostars beat Blacktown (one point, beat a non-SA team) and made the Round of 16 (2 points).
Interesting stuff.