Ok so I have some direction.
Rds data is sent in blocks, between 2 and 4 blocks, unfortunately the only way to sync is through CRC.
The decoder chip just receives the datastream and presents it as an unsync'd 128 bit buffer of data.
There is an arduino library, a spin off from a full blown Fm receiver program that will decode the Rds data and place it in its respective message registers, as I was eluding to earlier.
The thinking I'd have to do here though is syncing and CRC'ing the data, as this lib requires the Rds data blocks in sync, 1,2, 1,2,3,4 etc.
Shouldn't be that hard, I cant remember when I last looked at CRC checking.