Fixed mine this morning, thanks to Alex's info and diagram (thats another pint I owe you!)
Undo the two Torx screws, lift the moulded plastic tailgate cover up and away and it will unclip (requires a little bit of force in places) then you can lift it off and out of the way. Pop the offending rod back in to place and put it all back together again (after making sure the latch works)!
Couple of pics... here's our rod (at the bottom of the image), it has popped out of the white socket on the end of the mechanism:
And here it is, popped back in place - in this pic you can see where the rod travels to at the bottom of the bootlid:
Cheers
