RS9 Carbon busted cuff

Hey -

I busted the tab off the medial side cuff on my right RS9 Carbon boot
a couple weeks back. These boots are only 6 months old and a local
shop is graciously handling the return auth to get them back to
Salomon for repair. Unfortantely, the local shop did not have the
parts nor expertise to fix them.

My main question is how hard would it be to fix? It looked like there
was a white plastic piece in the black padded cuff that would receive
the end of a pivot rivet. Is there just a simple plastic rivet that
could be used to fix it? Does one need to tear open the padded cuff
to get the rivet in place? Shouldn't the a local XC ski shop carry
these parts?

Part of my need for this posting to also vent that I will be without
my new boots for the next 3 races of mine. I still
have my old yellow (very soft) RS9's.

Cheers,
Mike