Senior oarsman Carl Meyer suffered a bulging disc in his lower back and pulled out of the coxless four 24 hours before the worlds began.
That necessitated moving Jade Uru from the eight into the four, and reserve Nick Pusinelli stepping into the eight.
"There are still conversations to be had around the makeup of that crew, but the early indicators from the selectors are that we want to retain those good young rowers and keep investing in them," Peterson said yesterday.
New Zealand's return of nine medals - including four gold, one more than in the world champs on Lake Karapiro last year - had Peterson delighted with progress.
Having fielded 11 athletes in Athens seven years ago and 16 at Beijing in 2008, New Zealand have at least 26 heading for London, a solid endorsement for RNZ's high performance programme.
"The growth in our HP programme, and continuing to get results on the back of that, is a great achievement," Peterson said.
"There was a lot of scepticism post-Beijing with the [double Olympic champions] Evers-Swindells retiring and how we were going to cope. To be three years on from that and be achieving with this number of athletes and boats is so pleasing."
Three world champion combinations retained their titles from a year ago, but the return to the top of the podium of single sculler Mahe Drysdale for a remarkable fifth crown was perhaps the pick of the four. He had to overcome a debilitating back injury, rework his training regime, with less time on the water, but made it work and came away with what he reckoned to be his finest world champs achievement.
However, two bronze medal performances are sure to have heartened the national coaches.
Fiona Paterson and Anna Reymer's ambitions last November at Karapiro were undone by an injury to Reymer. They fought back impressively to take third in Bled, while the women's quad, sixth in last year's final, made tremendous strides during the European campaign to become clear Olympic medal contenders.
Britain topped the medal table with 14, and qualified 13 crews for their own Games, while topping the teams table with 105 points accumulated during the champs.
Australia had a strong week, with 10 medals. Germany and Italy matched New Zealand's tally.
The tightness of many finals will have rammed home the need to make every bit of preparation time for London count.
"They were all very close and competitive so we're certainly not resting on our laurels," Peterson said. "There's hard work ahead of us for the next 10 months but it's exciting that we're on track with where we said we would be."
The rowers will arrive home and put their feet up for all of two and a half weeks before the summer squad, to be named this week, gets back on the water on September 26. The national championships are at Karapiro from February 16, with the national trials to follow in the final week of February.
Medal ceremony
World championship medal honours
14: Britain (7 gold, 3 silver, 4 bronze)
10: Australia (3, 3, 4)
9: New Zealand (4, 1, 4); Germany (2, 4, 3); Italy (2, 4, 3)
New Zealand's medallists
Gold: Mahe Drysdale (single scull), Juliette Haigh/Rebecca Scown (coxless pair), Eric Murray/Hamish Bond (coxless pair), Nathan Cohen/Joseph Sullivan (double scull)
Silver: Storm Uru/Peter Taylor (lightweight double)
Bronze: Emma Twigg (single scull), Fiona Paterson/Anna Reymer (double scull), Sarah Gray/Fiona Bourke/Louise Trappitt/Eve Macfarlane (women's quad), Duncan Grant (lightweight single)
Boats qualified for London Olympics next year:
Men: Single scull, double scull, coxless pair, coxless four, quad, lightweight double scull
Women: Single scull, double scull, coxless pair, quad, lightweight double scull.
