Eddie O'Sullivan feels Ireland have found an impressive balance between structure and enterprise in attack but believes second-half issues that cropped up against Wales will need to be addressed before the upcoming showdown with France.
All in all, Ireland's start to the Guinness Six Nations could not have gone much better with a bonus-point win, largely secured during an early onslaught which left the Welsh reeling.
However, the Irish side did find themselves under pressure during much of the second half in Cardiff.
Speaking on RTÉ's Against The Head, former Ireland head coach O'Sullivan said the success in Farrell's evolution, which has underpinned a run of excellent results leading into a World Cup year, stems from improving upon one area of weakness from his predecessor's time.
"Everywhere you moved was to be choreographed to perfection," O'Sullivan said of the Joe Schmidt template which Farrell inherited.
"I think there's an element of that there but there is freedom as well now. And I think, to be fair, if you make an error, you make an error and move on. Whereas an error in Joe Schmidt's era seemed to be very harshly treated. So I think they're playing with that sense of balance in their game.
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"They know they've structure and they know they have to go and play. But there's a fair bit of latitude and we've got world class players now. If you look across the Irish XV, everyone are ballers. So that's a big plus for us and we're in a very good place in that respect."
O'Sullivan felt Ireland's exit strategy during the second half played into Wales' hands.
"I thought the first-half was excellent," he said, "But I would have reservations about the second half. I think we got it completely tactically wrong in the second.
"We knew going in that the two things we couldn't do is get sloppy in terms of our discipline and we knew Wales would have to run back.
"Wales were on track for the worst shellacking of their lives in a Six Nations game at home. They had to respond so that's understandable, but we should have seen that coming and we should have responded accordingly."
O'Sullivan warned that France are more likely to make the most of the type of opening Wales found during their purple patch.
"If we do that in the second half against France, we will pay a bigger price because at the end of the day, despite the huff and puff from Wales, they had oodles of possession and scored one try in the second half. But a French team would punish you a lot more than Wales would."
